AmigaOS 4 Mac Mini Port ‘Very Advanced’

In yet another set of legal documents in the Amiga-Hyperion court case, it is revealed that AmigaOS 4 was ported to run on the Mac Mini (the PowerPC version, obviously), or, at least, that the port was in a very advanced state. The information was found in an email exchange between Bill McEwen of Amiga and Nicola Morocutti of VirtualWorks, about the latter obtaining a license to sell AmigaOS 4 together with the Sam 440ep board as well as, apparently, to sell boxed copies of AmigaOS 4 for the Mac Mini.

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Please not another person that believes Bill McEwen and Amiga Inc. The City of Kent is in trouble now for endorsing Amiga Inc. and there is at least one citizen group already forming here to prevent the Amiga name from going on Center! /rasmus

If you read the documents, you find that Hyperion was obstructing Amiga’s attempt to get the product out the door. — or at least, that’s how Bill McEwen presents the matter, and Amiga presents a substantial number of documents to support this assertion. Apparently Amiga paid more money on several occasions than the contract stipulated to satisfy Hyperion’s demands, even offering to doube one demand for $1 million, yet Hyperion repeatedly failed to deliver any goods at all.

As far as i know Hypirion does provide hardware so now amiga inc plans to get rid of them and get as much money in their pockets as they can , after that its time to kill off the poor little company and go rich.

WyldStylist : Sorry but you’re wrong. Hyperion provides no hardware, it has just worked on OS4. Before the recent Amiga Inc action against Hyperion, the hardware was expected from ACube (VirtualWorks and 2 other companies) with their board called Sam. ACube that was also involved in the port on MacMini.

There are at least 5 millions of PPC based Macintosh worldwide still functioning and up and running…

If only 100.000, 200.000 or at least 250.000 persons would try to run AmigaOS on their PPC machine this will increase Amiga userbase enormously…

Infacts there is a large part of Apple Macintosh users who were former Amiga users in the past.

There is a large part of people who could buy AmigaOS just to see how it runs a different OS on their machines…

There is a great number of users of PPC Macintoshes who want to keep functioning their hardware even if Apple could cease to produce MacOS for PPC machines…

(all these three categories are potential wannabe users)

Remember that hundreds of thousands former Amiga users switched to Mac just because Amiga hardware they own was too old for modern usage or just broken, and Macintoshes seem the platform which is closer to their old Amiga experience!

Actually if you spot the traffic of the Amiga related sites worldwide, and make some counts, even counting new hardware sold in the past years, then there are at least:

– 2000 users of AmigaONE/AOS 4.0

– 1500/2000 users of Pegasos/MorphOS

(new ppc machines)

plus

– still 3000/5000 users of old Amiga classics models

(who can use only AmigaOS upto version 3.9)

– 300 users of Amiga Amithlon Emulator for X86,

– 200/300 users of AROS project hobby OS for Intel machines

(most of them are developers)

– and virtually about 10.000 users of Amiga emulators such as WinUAE

(but very best part of them use emulated Amiga only for games, so they are not interested in new machines with serious software!

We can count only a third or a fourth of them -2500 users- interested in new Amiga portings)…

While a functioning AmigaOS porting for PPC classic macintoshes will increase userbase by a factor 100 and upto (200.000, 250.000 new users)! This will ensure Amiga a very SIGNIFICATIVE userbase!

(Amiga will became third platform after Windows and Linux…

There will be then more Amigans than BEOS users.

Actually it is BeOS the third platform)

This will really mean millions of dollars of renevues…

More users to buy Amiga programs!

(Again a software market for Amiga)

More and more developers who will return to develop for Amiga software market…!

IMAGINE! New sites… New AmigaOS related newspapers… Software houses… Advertising renevues… Books that explain dummies how to use AmigaOS on Macs!

No wonder Amiga Inc. wants back AmigaOS from Hyperion preventing the belgian firm to sell AmigaOS by themselves…

With a new market and an improved userbase, then there will be enough money running to keep Amiga ALIVE!

This will also justify the development of new Amiga Machines…!!!

With all the new userbase there could be enough money for research and hardware development and the opportunity to realize new PPC machines OR EVEN X86 based new Amigas and AmigaOS for Intel Operating Sustem!!!

(It is only a matter how much it could grew again the Amiga market… But perspectives are really interesting and promising!)

I think you’re grabbing these numbers out of thin air. As much as I’d like there to be more BeOS users than Mac users, or even *BSD users, everyone knows that’s not true. The idea of millions of people flocking to AOS4 on PPC Macs is ridiculous. I’m not going to start a fight over whether or not OS4 is superiour to OS X, but I consider it self-evident that OS X is better than Windows – and you don’t exactly see people coming over in droves, do you?

A commercial version of AmigaOS4 to hardware that runs MacOS X would generate very little interest beyond current Amiga users who didn’t get hold of an AmigaOne but happen to have a Mac Mini. UAE is probably better for games, and OS4 would hardly be interesting as a desktop OS, lacking a decent browser, office suite, media creation apps.

For play, sure it could gain some popularity, but for pay? I don’t think so. I’m sure it’d be downloaded lots, though…

In conclusion, I love your post. ‘SIGNIFICATIVE’ is the funniest non-word I’ve seen in a while.

You’re linking an email conversation posted on a public forum by an anonymous guy…

When will this end ?

Or maybe it’s time to replace the “News” with “Rumours” ?

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Nope!

It is a PRIVATE discussion between CEO of Amiga Inc. Bill Mc. Ewen, and Nicola Morocutti the representative of an italian software and hardware firm called ACube.

They said they have contacted Hyperion (the developers of AmigaOS 4.0) to obtain informations on how to run one of their copy of AmigaOS 4.0 (they own some AmigaONEs) in order to run the AmigaOS on a Mac Mini using some hacks, and a very innovative loader.

AND ACube SUCCEDED IN RUNNING AOS ON MACS!

So they asks CEO of Amiga Inc. a quick licence to sell boxed versions of AmigaOS ready to run on Macintoshes using their “AmigaOS LOADER for Macs”.

(and earn very big cash from millions PPC Macintosh users who want to try AmigaOS on their machines)

ACube had also an agreement with Hyperion which are ready to produce AmigaOS on ANY PPC based platform if only Amiga Inc. gives them any “OK” or “GO ON” signal!

Bill Mc.Ewen presented this private discussion in the US Court to proof that Hyperion is giving for free original source code of OS 4.0, while they refused to give it to Amiga Inc. who are the owners of ALL intellectual property of Amiga…

How stupid Bill Mc. Ewen was!

He has two firms who could work free for him, and just pay him millions of dollars of copyright renevues, but he don’t want just his piece of cake from copyrights fees…

BeOS it is used in various releases (original, Open BeOS, Zeta, Haiku) on almost 2500, 3000 machines.

So sure we could reach 4th place

(I obviously I am not counting the Server OSes, and not commercial ones, and not smartphone OSes when I made my exsteems).

From Link about number of apple users worldwide, you can easily calculate that there are at least 16 millions (22 minus 6) millions of Macs worldwide, and the best part of them was still PPC. So I calculated IN DEFECT the number of 5 millions PPC still functioning.

However all your blathering does’t care me.

I don’t care how many Apple users could ADOPT AmigaOS as their preferred OS, or how many could use it as their second OS on macintosh.

If Amiga OS will be priced at 100 Euro, if only 250.000 Mac users worldwide will be so hionest to buy an ORIGINAL package of AmigaOS then you can easily calculate:

100 Eu x 250.000 users = 25.000.000 Eu = 36.600.000 US Dollars.

Excluding taxes, creditors and employees bills, there will be still enough money to develop AmigaOS for Intel X86, port some decent browsers and Office suits.

As much as I like the idea of Amiga OS (I still have an A1200), the reality is that it’s an OS without a market. Short of playing retro games and having a hobby, there is really no way anyone could sensibly choose it over Apple as a productivity tool.

Back in the good old days circa 1992 Amiga used to be a strong media OS and was used in professional video and music production. It was also a sweet games machine. Now, after a decade of stagnation, Amiga sadly has been superseded in pretty much every domain by Apple and games consoles.

Had of Amiga been switched on 10 years ago and realised that a small, fast OS is perfect for compact devices, they might have become what Palm are (er.. were?).

Maybe, just maybe Amiga could sell some units if they made a playstation portable style device that can play old Amiga games.. but even then, there is the GP2X. Still, Bill and Amiga Inc. keep OS news entertaining.

The hard part about this port was probably the bootloader and some drivers, as Apple doesn’t like to document them for other OSes, and it is very different than UBoot, the firmware for the AmigaOne and Micro-A1.

The original PPC Mac Mini had a Radeon 9200 graphics adapter, which there were already drivers (or at least a base to write them) for, since Hyperion engaged a developer to write them (with documentation from ATI).

Having a Mac Mini running Amiga OS 4 would have been very nice, and there would have been many more machines than users to run it on. I think that the fear of piracy (and/or adaptions to run on the Pegasos or EFIKA) on the part of Amiga Inc. quashed this one.

I think quite the opposite. They’re machines have never been better since they switched to Intel, with the ability to run Windows natively or any x86 *nix distro, since the PPC versions are always behind their counterparts.

I loved Amiga when it was out and it was the most advanced OS in the world. I’d sure love it if it still was a viable option, but it is now completely DEAD. All that is left is a few fans with high hopes, god bless them.

I mean, seriously, what is the point of waiting on a few money-losing, litigating companies to deliver overpriced hardware?

As long as the OS is not open-sourced, or put in the hands of a competent company, or ported to commodity hardware (preferably not EOL’d) it will remain dead.

I loved Amiga when it was out and it was the most advanced OS in the world. I’d sure love it if it still was a viable option, but it is now completely DEAD. All that is left is a few fans with high hopes, god bless them.

[/quote]

Amiga was capable in these years to survive the demise of Commodore, reach a common standard libraries for 24 and 32 bit graphics, standard libraries to manage 16 bit audio, realize at least 2 common and well structured GUI engines ReAction and MUI (a third -Feeelin- is on the way), it achieves MP3 players, P2P programs, DVD Players.

I suggest you to pick up Tanenbaum’s book about OSs, a standard textbook for CS courses. You’ll understand why OS 3.9 wasn’t that evolved afterall, even if it can do so many things (thank to dedicated and passionate programmers!)

Remember that Moana Loader to run AmigaOS on MacMini was realized in less than six months by only one italian programmer who is an external associate to AOS 4.0 development team, and he got just only some hints by Hyperion team (Frieden Brothers) on how to realize this project.

This proofs that porting AmigaOS on ANY PPC architecture it is easier than we all could believe…

And remember that into an exhibit from Amiga Inc. at court trial there is a document from Rogue (one of the Friedens brothers who realized EXEC NG kernel of AmigaOS PPC) who stated that at Hyperion they have the right ideas and a concrete plan to port AmigaOS on Cell Processor based hardware.

And Cell processor it is sure very far ro be considered obsolete overpriced piece of hardware!

>Remember that Moana Loader to run AmigaOS on MacMini was realized in less than six months by only one italian programmer who is an external associate to AOS 4.0 development team, and he got just only some hints by Hyperion team (Frieden Brothers) on how to realize this project.

Well: if there had been 4 people working on it it could have been finished in maybe a month… And maube it wouldln’t be so late then.

Remember that Moana Loader to run AmigaOS on MacMini was realized in less than six months by only one italian programmer who is an external associate to AOS 4.0 development team, and he got just only some hints by Hyperion team (Frieden Brothers) on how to realize this project.

>>>

Well: if there had been 4 people working on it it could have been finished in maybe a month… And maube it wouldln’t be so late then.

[/quote]

Do you know how many years it has been stated it is impossible to port AmigaOS on Macintosh, because there are no informations from Apple?

Do you know how many programmers are free on Amiga?

The programmer of Moana he is a single man developer, and it is involved in the porting of MPlayer on Amiga, and Firefox (thru Cygnix)…

(WARNING: I am not sure 100% if I reckognized well the person I am thinking of as the true programmer of Moana amongst all Amiga people I know in Italy.-)

He actually stopped working on Moana.

He stopped working on Mplayer and other projects, just to have firefox running on Amiga.

It is the common problem of the lack of developers into Amiga when community skrinked.

One single programmer should manage 2 or 3 projects at the same time!

If AmigaOS will be sold bundled with Moana loader to run on Macs, and Apple users will start buying it, then will be again a valuable market.

We could hire more programmers to run on a single project, and/or maybe with AmigaOS running on macintoshes then some programmers from Mac world skilled in programming PPC, could start helping and developing Open Source programs for Amiga also!.

I missed getting an AOne. And don’t want to go backwards and get an older Amiga with a PPC upgrade to run it.

I have MANY G3/G4 Macs, and would love to be able to run OS4 on those.

I intend to buy an Efika and I hope OS4 will be ported to that Hardware at some point.

I realize that NOT porting OS4 to more common and cheaper hardware protects the Amiga Hardware market.

But, since there is NOBODY selling OS4 compatible hardware… What’s the point of protecting nothing?

I think the best strategy is porting OS4 to the Mac Mini or older PowerMac G3 B&W or G4 machines as the LOW END Amiga Compatible market, and then having new hardware vendors skip the low end/low profit market and instead concentrate on the higher end/high profit market.

The funds derived from selling OS4 on the Mac Market can be used to develop OS4 more fully and to add a good brower, office suite, etc…

OS4 will never be anything but a niche OS. But, given the way Microsoft is going… It has a potential to serve a lot of people at home with Older Macs no longer serviced by Apple, as MacOS X will no longer support their hardware, and an alternative to Linux which is too difficult for most people at home to master.

There’s an opportunity to make some money here, and make hundreds of thousands of users happy with a nice OS.